An ounce of prevention ...

I can tell I'm starting to get old, or maybe better put -- a bit older, because I keep getting letters from my insurance company telling me it would be in my best interests to go see my doctor and have this test done or that procedure.  In my younger days, I viewed these notes with the same disdain I do junk mail or robocalls at dinner time.

However, hard-headed as I may be, I am not stupid.  So when the third or fourth letter came reminding that I was now old enough to consider getting a colon screening, I thought maybe this would be the right time.  So I dialed up my local colonoscopy guy and made an appointment.  Another nice thing about my wife and I having the same birthdays is she gets the same "invitations."  This basically became an "I'll do it if you do it" thing.

Following an exciting evening of preparation, the only thing left was to face your two worst fears:  that the doctor would actually find something, and that you would totally embarrass yourself in front of a doctor (total stranger) and 3 or 4 nurses (total strangers).  Friends of mine who had this procedure before me told me that I would be put out and wouldn't know anything that happened.  Well, that may be true, but if the doctor came in in a clean change of clothes, I guess that would tell the tale.

I guess one good thing was that the whole staff and procedure was done by strangers in a town quite a ways from mine.  I was happy to get in there, that way I felt pretty certain I wouldn't have any former students of mine doing any "work" on me.

Oh, yeah, my wife got hers done too.  No bad results for either of us.  She got a 10-year "pass" from the doctor and I got a 5-year one.  So other than the prep, it wasn't that bad, and the "ends" justified the means.

Our body is a machine for living.  It is organized for that, it is its nature. Tolstoy


Hooah